How I Start Vegetable Seeds Indoors

January 24, 2013

Now’s a great time to pick up your vegetable seeds at your local garden center as the seed racks are full. The seed packs provide seed starting info about planting and spacing and some say that you can get an earlier start by planting your seeds indoors 4 to 10 weeks ahead of your outdoor planting date.

Your seedlings will need a sunny location or place them about 8 inches below plant lights. If there is not enough light, they can become tall and spindly.

Some seeds, like Broccoli, Cabbage, Spinach, Lettuce can germinate in cool soil. Peppers, Tomatoes and Eggplant require warm soil. Special seed mat heating pads are a big help when germinating Peppers and Tomatoes.

Here are links to two short videos from several years ago when we lived in Ohio showing tomato and pepper seeds being started indoors and one shot later when these same plants were being planted in our garden.

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I found a tomato plant growing in my back(that Idid not plant) . I decided to put it in a pot because soon to come home renovations. How when doing so the plant went into shock, the we had about 3days of rain which the plant was exposed to. What should I do next? I just applyed mircale grow transplanting solutions.

Hi Steve
Your plant should start to look better in a few days unless it gets too dry or too cold. Also, keep it out of full sun during the hottest part of the day until it has a chance to get some new growth.

I would like to add that the Seed Starting Soil is really worth the money.

Last year, I started gardening after a 20 yr hiatus (I’m 37 y/o) and initally used the pellet things. The kind you add water, it swells up, and you add the seed. The seedlings were very spindly and never survived transplantation. I mean nothing- tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, eggplant,….nothing.

I went to Tractor Supply and saw the Seed Starting Mix. I bought it and was teased that I bought into a name brand. Well, the last 4 seeds from the last pack of tomatoes (Sweet 100 Cherry) grew and grew! It grew to almost 8 ft and the main trunk of each plant was 3/4 in diameter. I did have to water daily (I live in West Texas) and fertilized regularly. The 4 plants used 48 tomato cages for support, because there was so much fruit and foilage. I had lots and lots of tomatoes and no one teases me now. I was the envy of the neighborhood! I took pics in December just before the first week of freezing overnight temps because I knew the plants would not survive that.

This year I will start all the seeds from the Seed Starting Soil and so will the neighbors who initially thought I was nuts for buying it.